Menu

Category Archives: uncles

The keys are more likely to land in the laps of my children these days, but I doubt they notice the weight or understand its value. I’m sure the offerings would earn a much more worthy reaction if they came attached to a logo-emblazoned key chain.

But they don’t.

So it’s likely that the kids and their cousins miss the lead-in nuances. That they don’t sense movement of the vehicle until they’re fully onboard.

Once strapped in, though, they’re in for the full ride. Usually, quite entranced and willing.

I’m still a kid in the eyes of the next generation up, so I’m able to enjoy an occasional trip on the time machine, myself.

Always a treat. Often a surprise.

One of my students was recently assigned an audio project whereby he would record an interview with someone who had been a “witness to history.” His particular task was made more difficult because he didn’t have a means off campus.

No worry, I assured him, among my peers and me, surely we could find a witness or two.

Not so easy.

The lot of us proved just a little too young, and a little too lacking in the pulse-of-the nation experiences that might have set us front-and-center at a few world events. Collective minds together, we came up with the one person who perhaps had the right resume.

It worked. Norm at least had the college campus recollection of listening to the somber toll of bells that indicated President Kennedy had been assassinated.

When I shared this story in a family setting, my mom, aunts and uncles, offered their recollections of where they were the day that Kennedy was shot. They each remembered. Vividly.

But it was my uncle’s nonchalant memory of his buddy rushing to retrieve him with the statement, Jack’s been shot. C’mon we’ve got to get back to the White House.

What? Huh?

You were in D.C. when Kennedy got killed?

A shoulder shrug.

How did I not know this? How did WE not know?

(I called my cousin on the way home; she had no idea.)

Let me explain. My uncle is not some political stalwart. He’s not a diplomat or a dignitary. This was merely one of those place-and-time situations. He was stationed in D.C. Just happened to be there as history unfolded.

(Btw, he also attended the funeral, but I’m getting too far astray of the time machine message.)

My uncle and his siblings hold keys.

Last Thanksgiving, the same uncle regaled with stories of the Lavadora man, who rounded the streets of Boston selling his magical bleaching water. Holding court around a table full of food and family, he took us all back. To another time, to a different era.

It was as if Einstein’s musings on the fluidity of time travel were being tested outside the lab, fueled on a satiated hunger, a bit of wine, and a rapt audience.

The kids were enthralled. Some of the big kids were, as well.

I wonder that we don’t appreciate the treasure chests available to us all while we still have access to their keys. What’s so easily unlocked with a small prod or a simple question can also be too easily lost. Unless we’re wise enough to grab a hold of the keys and give the time machine an occasional spin.